Avian flu worries tested at area poultry shows

Veterinarian, egg judge inject humor into serious work

Veterinarian, egg judge inject humor into serious work

August 17, 2007|By Russ Keen, American News Writer

In contrast to all the fun associated with the Brown County Fair, something serious took place in the poultry barn on Thursday afternoon. Veterinarian Darwin Britzman of Sioux Falls tested all the fowl for a foul disease - avian bird flu. He's under contract with the state to do so. “We hit a few fairs last year,” Britzman said. “This year, we're trying to cover about all of them.” So far, there's nothing to indicate any fair critter anywhere in the state has the avian flu or any type of less serious flu that could mutate into something worse, Britzman said. Bird flu has killed a few people, particularly in Asia. Health experts warn the disease has the potential of becoming pandemic. Though his work is serious, Britzman added to the traditional fun of the fair with a little barnyard humor. “Don't tell anyone: I went to college for nine years and can't even find the rear end of a duck,” he said as he tried to administer one of the rectal tests that use cotton swabs. “There are too many feathers.” All about eggs: A few minutes later, another event involving fowls' bottoms began with another farm joke, this time a pun. “This is the end product,” chicken-egg judge Wayne Fischer of Arlington said with a smile as he began his inspection of the four entries - three dozen white eggs and one dozen brown eggs. So what is a good egg, or a good dozen of eggs? Fischer told a crowd of about 30 that he would look for overall uniformity in the size and color of the eggs in each dozen, along with the texture of the shells. It turned out that two dozen got purple ribbons, the highest possible honor, and two got blue ribbons, the second highest honor. The browns got a blue, partly because they were different shades of brown. It's tough to assemble a dozen brown eggs with the same hue on all 12, Fischer said. As the saying goes, don't put all your eggs in one basket. But anyone who wants to exhibit eggs at the fair might be wise to put all the eggs from one hen in the same carton, according to a tip Fischer gave for gathering a dozen eggs of uniform color and size. “Find the hen that lays the nicest eggs and save them for a month or so,” he said. After announcing which eggs got purple ribbons and which got blues, Fischer concluded his presentation with, “Congratulations to the hens and to the owners.” Then a rooster crowed; maybe he felt left out.